So, I'm Retired---When Do I Get To Play Golf?

     What is retirement supposed to be like?  I have heard that it is a time to slow down and maybe take a trip somewhere exciting or exotic.  Someone told me that its great because you have a lot more time on your hands to play golf.  I don't know who that person was, but the information that he gave me was not exactly accurate. In fact, the last time I played golf I had to get a shovel and dig my way to my clubs through all the dust that had accumulated. As I have said before, I am lucky to play golf once every three months.  Why am I not playing more?  I'm retired for goodness sake.
     I retired from teaching in 2011 after being offered what is known as a "Golden Handshake".  It seems that I was an expensive quantity as far as my salary/benefits package and the district wanted to cut down on their costs. So, a "Golden Handshake" was offered to teachers that were high on the pay scale and met certain requirements. I took the offer--and it was a good one--for a number of reasons, the biggest reason being I want to concentrate more on my writing career which was taking off. All seemed rosy, and I was very much excited about what the future held.
    All of a sudden the dark clouds began to form. It reminded me of the times I was in Florida and was having fun at the beach. You see a small cloud on the horizon and you know that something ominous is brewing. So it was with my short lived enjoyment of my retirement. Things just started to fall apart and not in a small way. Hurricane Matthew is hitting the Florida Coast as we speak destroying property along with disrupting lives and with all that was going on in my life, I know their pain. It isn't pleasant.
    I won't bore you with all the details, but here is a quick rundown of what happened next.  The magazine I was writing for went belly up.  I was denied being able to substitute teach in the school district I worked for--that's a whole other story in and of itself. I started writing for another magazine and it too went belly up--not my fault folks.  I went through the "Big D"--divorce, which many of you if you have experienced know what I'm talking about--and had to vacate my house, which kind of was a good thing in disguise--the move, not the divorce. I remarried--that was a very good thing as my wife is a wonderful person and plays golf.  I wound up in the hospital for congestive heart failure--funny thing about medications, they don't work if you don't take them and that is another story as well.
     We moved from Fresno to Merced sixty miles north. Then a year later we moved again. I wound up in the hospital again for what?  Congestive heart failure of course as it seems that not taking your medication is not a good thing.  I want to put all of you at ease here though.  The doctor flat out told me that I had two weeks to live if I didn't take my medications and that little talk sunk in.  You will be happy to know that I am religiously taking my medications--I feel great and am recovering.
     The story doesn't end there and there is one more thing to add.  We moved again and I hope that this is the last move for a very long time. Out of my mouth and into God anmy wife's ear. The cloud does have a silver lining on this though.  The house we have now is exactly what we want.  We are very happy here and we are very much settled in.  It seems as though I still don't have time for golf though.
     My wife works and has a very full schedule. We only have one car so my wife has almost exclusive rights to using it for work. Since she is working so hard, I would feel guilty asking her if she would drop me off at the course to play golf while she is working.  I just don't think that would be right. I try to do things around the house as much as my health will allow to ease the burden on her. That didn't sound very good, did it. I hope you will understand what I am trying to say there. I try to help out around the house as much as I can as my health permits.
    Its not that I don't stay busy. Of course there is this blog and I try to post every day. I also have two websites that I have developed, one with a co-founder and another that deals with travel that is mine alone. Another of my endeavors is updating and posting on the website of a local golf course. I have my own personal social media sites that I work as well as my activity on three other Facebook pages as well. I have started representing Golfing Holidays of Ireland as an American contact for booking their trips to Ireland (By the way, if you are planning a golf trip to Ireland or the British Isles contact me at david@golfingholidaysireland.com and I can make it happen. I would love to be of service.). My wife is choir director at our church and I sing in the choir so Wednesday nights are out as are Sunday mornings because we are leading worship at the church. I also cook and do light housekeeping around the house.
     When I retired, I was given some advice and that advice was to keep busy. I have by default followed that advice. I have also been told that in retirement you are busier after you retire than when you were working--but broker.  This I am finding is very true. I still am very perplexed.  I thought I was going to have time to fit in a lot of golf.  Boy, was I wrong.

Some day soon I'll play more golf.